


Venomous

by wellthatjusthappend



Series: Story Requests [18]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, As it should be, Blood, Bruce and Jason hunt pirates, Deaf!Jason, Fluff and Angst, Licking Blood, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Short, This doesn't go too well for Jason, Torture, Tumblr Prompt, mixing mer myths as I want, my Mer are never safe because what's the fun in that?, not part of my main mer series, or does it?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 17:04:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19300015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wellthatjusthappend/pseuds/wellthatjusthappend
Summary: Jason was sure he was supposed to be dead. Heshouldhave been dead.Instead, something much different awaited him in the watery depths.





	Venomous

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: _Not sure if this is how I do this but can we have some mer!Dick saving human!Jason for a pirate ship or something? I love those two and I ned moooore!!!!_
> 
> Two Mer prompts in one day! So fun, and I'm happy to oblige.

Pirates were the worst. 

It was not the first time Jason had thought this, but it might very well be the last. 

Admiral Wayne had been chasing this particular band of pirates since before Jason even joined his crew. The clowns and their captain Joker had been rumored to be somewhere in the surrounding area, but they hadn’t managed to locate them yet. The crew had been reloading supplies on an island and Bruce had ordered everyone to stay on the beach. Still, Jason had thought he’d seen something in the jungle so he went to check it out. 

A mistake he was almost definitely going to pay for with his life. 

The Joker’s goons dragged him back to their ship where the Joker spent the next several days beating and burning and bleeding Jason within an inch of his life and then restarting the process. 

Apparently torturing Jason was a wonderful way to pass the time while the Joker waited for Bruce to catch up to them. A tiny part of Jason still desperately hoped Bruce would make it in time to save him. The more realistic part of him knew that he wasn’t getting out of this one alive. 

Sure enough, when Jason heard the call from the crows nest that a ship had been spotted, Jason was hauled up to the desk and tied to an anchor. 

“Well Robin, it’s been fun, but it’s time to play with your daddy and I can’t have you getting in the way. You understand, of course,” sang the Joker, grin like a bloody slash across his face. 

Jason’s lungs felt like they might be partially collapsed, but he managed to spit a glob of blood onto the Joker’s face nonetheless. 

“That,” Joker back-handed him, “wasn’t very polite. And here I thought I might have taught you some manners during our time. Ah well, maybe the fishes will.”

He hated them. He absolutely hated pirates. 

Jason stared up at the sky so that the Joker’s grinning face wouldn’t be the last thing he saw before he died.

And then he was tipped over the edge of the ship into the water. 

He sank  _ fast _ . The sudden crushing pressure from all around him was excruciating. Jason screamed out his air in a stream of bubbles as he felt the white hot pop in his ears breaking. And still the anchor pulled him down. The light was disappearing fast, and Jason wasn’t sure if it was because of the depth or how close he was to dying. Possibly both. 

The last thing Jason saw before he lost consciousness was a pair of bright blue eyes staring back at him. 

* * *

 

Jason woke puking up saltwater into the sand. It burned and it felt like it would never stop. As Jason started to lose consciousness again, he felt cold wet hands on his sides turning him over. 

* * *

 

The next time Jason woke up, it was with a whimper of pain as his broken arm was set into place. There was a drag of something wet against one of his cuts, followed by a feeling like everything in that area had been set on fire. Jason managed to look down at an inhumanly beautiful face smeared with Jason’s blood as he- they?- lapped at the wound. 

Wonderful, Jason managed to think, he survived the Joker only to be eaten alive by a Mer. 

The feeling of fire spread and Jason let it take him into unconsciousness again. 

* * *

 

The first thing that Jason thought when he woke up for good, was that he should be dead. 

The next thing that Jason thought was that it was it was too quiet. His body still hurt all over, but not quite like he thought it would. There was no blissful moment of forgetfulness about his situation. Jason remembered exactly what happened to him: first the Joker, and then getting dragged into a Mer’s lair… the stinging feel of it’s wet tongue on his skin. Mer were venomous, everyone knew that. Jason still didn’t know why he was alive.

Jason groaned slightly, and then paused. He’d felt the vibration of the sound he’d made, but he hadn’t heard the sound. It was too quiet. He could feel the water lapping at his feet, but he couldn’t hear it. He knew his breath was coming out harshly and definitely audibly, but… nothing. 

He reached up to his ears and felt the dried blood there. Remembered the pain peaking in his ears as he was dragged underwater too deep too fast. 

He let his hand fall away.

So it was like that then. 

Jason flinched hard when a wet hand touched his skin. There had been no warning.

The Mer was a beautiful as his fevered mind remembered. More even, as he was able to take in the details of their lithe form and the blue stripes of their scales. The spines of their fins on their arms and back helped them look deceptively delicate, but Jason knew that the venom in any of those spikes would be enough to give even a large man a heart attack. 

The Mer’s mouth moved as they said something and Jason felt his chest constrict. 

“I can’t-” Jason croaked- at least he thought he said that. He couldn’t hear himself to know if he was understandable, “I can’t hear you.”

He saw the Mer’s eyes widen and strange look flickered across their face before they simply nodded. Instead, they slowly mouthed words and lightly touched his side where what had been Jason’s clothes had been torn up to bind his many injuries.

“Am I alright?” Jason translated. The Mer nodded. Jason swallowed and thought about playing it tough, but there really was no point, “No.”

The Mer’s mouth turned down, but they didn’t look surprised. 

Honestly though, what was weird was that despite the enormous amount of pain he was in, it really should have been a lot worse. His bruises were gone and the cuts and burns that he’d had were sensitive pink scars. 

“How long was I out?” Jason asked with a frown. 

The Mer hesitated and then raised the webbed fingers of one hand.

“5 days?” 

The Mer nodded.

“How is that possible?” Jason murmured starting at the healed scars.

The Mer tugged Jason’s hand to their face and cut a thin line into his skin with a nail. Jason swallowed as blood welled up and the Mer kept eye contact with Jason as they licked over the cut and then sucked. It should not have looked sexy, but it did. 

The moment their saliva touched his skin, it burned and went numb. There was that same feeling of fire spreading through his hand, but toned way down from what Jason remembered. When the Mer drew away, the cut was nothing more than a sensitive pink line on his skin. Jason flexed his hand, but the cut was truly closed. 

“I don’t understand,” Jason said staring at his hand, “That should- you poisoned me. That’s what that feeling is, isn’t it?”

The Mer smiled ruefully and waved their hand vaguely. 

“How does that even work?” Jason frowned.

The Mer hesitated as they thought, and then held up their fingers pinched almost closed, then made a gesture as if something was coming to rest, and then held up their pinched fingers again.

“You gave me a little at a time?” Jason tried, uncertainly. 

The Mer nodded eagerly.

“So in little bits, the venom healed me instead of killed me?”

The Mer nodded again. 

“And now my body just, what, got used to being poisoned?” 

The Mer’s shoulders shook with laughter as they gave a half shrug and a smile. They were beautiful. 

Jason wanted to hear that. Even if tales had said that Mer’s voices were dangerous, that the sound of them could drive men to insanity. Jason wanted to  _ hear _ . He knew he’d adapt, that he’d be  _ fine _ once he adjusted, he just- in one fell swoop, the Joker had stolen several parts of his identity. 

Things would never be the same again. 

The Mer touched his arm again. While Jason had been brooding they had dragged themselves up onto the sand next to Jason and were looking at him in concern. 

“I’ll be fine eventually,” Jason promised, “Thank you for saving me. My name is Jason.”

The Mer’s face lit up. They wrote in the sand and pointed to themselves.

Jason couldn’t help but smile a little.

“Hello  _ Dick. _ ”

**Author's Note:**

> My Mer are never safe, because what's the fun in that? I had a lot of fun mixing a different set of myths with this au than I did in my main series. 
> 
> I actually had one of my ear drums rupture. It was a pretty scary experience, I had a really bad ear infection in both ears to the point where I could only really hear loud bangs and bass. I was taking meds and seeing a doctor, but one of them still ended up rupturing. There was a lot more blood than you'd expect, along with several other weird side effects. Thankfully there was minimal hearing damage in the end.
> 
> If you've ever wanted to send a story request, feel free! Besides AO3, I'm on [Tumblr](https://wellthatjusthappend.tumblr.com/mywriting),[DA](https://www.deviantart.com/wellthatjusthappened), and Discord. Same username. 
> 
> If you want a continuation of a story, you can always send another prompt. FQAs listed on my [writing](https://wellthatjusthappend.tumblr.com/mywriting) page.


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